Medical expenses bleeding common                                   man
                                                                 Date: 28-04-2016

In our country most of the people are unable to meet the medical expenditure.Most are  the people are poor.They are facing lot of difficulties to survive also,most of them are  depend upon agriculture and living in rural areas in a small villages. Medical facilities  will not be available in their native places. They have to go to near by big village or town for primary treatment. RMP doctors will be  available in big villages for first aid only. In towns qualified Doctors available. For mazor   treatment public are forced to go to district head quarters for better treatment, in Govt.   Hospitals, even though the treatment not enough they go to metropolitan cities. where  General Hospitals available senior and expert Doctors are available but meagre facilities   available so most of the people prefer Corporate Private Hospitals. Govt.is interested to provide treatment equal to the  Corporate Hospitals level. Govt trying  but unable to reach the corporate level treatment. Poor people unable to admit in Corporate  Hospitals due to high payments. Only high level income people prefer only Corporate Hos- -pitals only, they never go to Govt.Hospitals, because facilities are less.  If any common  people from villages are city admits in Corporate Hospital they can't offer  the medical expenditure. Which puts them massive financial burden. Corporate Hospitals are bleeding the patients charging more amount and recommending costly diagnosis for  minor diseases. Recently one MP complained against a Corporate Hospital for bleeding to Central Health Minister for investigation. Corporate Hospital are being made commercial. Corporate hospitals are very happy if an patient of an empanelled  admit in their Hospital, they think a golden goose has taken admission.  They mainly depend on their household income or savings 68% and borrowings 25% to fund  hospitalisation expenses, reflecting the failure of the agencies in expending the reach of   Govt. health facilities and insurance cover in rural areas.in cities ,people rely much more   on their income or savings 75% and borrowing 18% to fund their treatments reveals   a Govt. survey. It confirms that our country has among the most privatised healthcare systems in the  world. The NSSO survey also found that around 1% of the poor in rural areas have to sell their physical assets to meet health expenditure, and more than 5% seek help of friends and relatives.  This is also in line with earlier studies which have concluded that millions are pushed in to poverty each year due to medical expenditure which leading causes of indebtedness among the poor in our country. Most of the rural and urban population are not covered under any scheme, public or private to support health expenditure. The poorer people appear unaware or beyond the reach of such coverage. Only 12% of the people falling in the highest income group, in urban areas had some arrangement of medical insurance from private providers. For all others, the share of private medical insu- -rance is negligible. The Govt. ,however ,was able to bring about 12% urban and 13% of  rural population under health protection coverage through Rastriya Swasthya Bima Yojana ( RABY) for un organised workers and BPL families, ESI for organised workers, CGHS for Govt. Employees and other state level insurance plans that cover BPL. We hope the Government has to take steps to convert Govt. hospitals to the level of  Corporate treatment and save the common man from  bleeding of medical expenditure.       .                                                                                                   yours,                                                                             www.seaflowdiary.blogspot.com